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Happy Friday Today we are going to talk about ink…well I’m gonna talk about ink (for about 15 minutes LOL) and you can listen if you like. I had a couple people request a video demonstrating the various brands of ink-pads and what they are good for and at least once a week someone emails me or leaves a comment asking about ink so today I am going to give you the scoop on ink-pads! You don’t need to take notes during the video because I prepared an Ink Pad Cheat Sheet that you can download at the end of this post:) Just step away from the pencil ma’am. Here’s the video:

I realized that I did not talk about chalk or distress inks (doh!) and you might be feverishly trying to make notes while the video was going (no small task with how fast I talk) so I decided to save you the trouble and create a cross reference cheat sheet that you can print containing all the inks I talked about and the two I forgot. there is also a bit of room in the chart for you to jot down your notes and findings. I have also included tips and recipes for homemade ink and ink refreshers. You can download that below:

So, did I do good? Do you feel like you know a thing or two about all of the ink pad choices out there? As always if you have any questions just leave a comment (or if you just want to say howdy-do!) Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Howdy-do! LoVeD the video! Seeing you in the Star Ship Stamper-prise made me realize I how much I miss you and now I think we need another craft night. (hint, hint) 😀 PS How many cups of java did you drink before making this video? Happy Friday to you!

Oh MY Goodness!!! You Done Way Good! I am not worthy, I am not worthy…. sorry couldn’t resist. I learned more from this video than I have in years of crafting ( and I’m no spring chicken) Thank You, Thank You & Again, Thank You!!!

This is absolutely fantastic! Stamping is not my primary love as a collage artist, but I do use stamps pretty often. I really appreciate the education as I’ve never really understood the difference between the different types of ink before. 🙂

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to video this and put together the cheat sheet ,and to my friend Jan for passing this on to me. This is soooooo valuable for me. I am looking forward to your future posts.

Thank you so much for taking you valueable time to share all this great info with us! So many pads and inks can be confusing…this will be posted permanently above my work area!
Suzy
ps. Are you on Pinterest?

Hi Louisa, do you mean to color the rubber then stamp it on paper? You can but personally I would not because alcohol ink is bad for rubber and after you color the rubber you need to spray the stamp with more alcohol to keep it wet long enough. I’d get a few watercolor markers for this instead;)

Thanks so much for your videos/blog. I love to craft but unfortunately was not born wealthy. In spite of this, I have laid out the money for good quality acrylic paint(tubes, Golden- mostly). I see all the hoopla about Distress Paint. Other than automatically matching the pallette of the other Distress products, is there any advantage to investing in these not inexpensive premixed acrylics?

The distress paints are craft quality, not artist quality and they are expensive for what they are. Stick with golden and you can mix any color you like. You have made a good choice! Anything released by Tim Holtz is very popular and the colors look nice and are trendy but the products are ho-hum in my opinion.

Thanks so much. I appreciate Tim for being a great person and sharing techniques with crafters and elevating a lot of people above pink teddy bears(Not that there’s anything wrong with pink teddy bears!),and I love Adirondack inks and pads and even the Distress inkpads, and of course his stamps and accessories – I just have to be selective.

thank you so much for all of your valuable information. did you happen to put the cleaning solutions for the rubber and clear stamps anywhere. i am new to stamping and want to make sure I keep my stamp in good shape since they add up to quite a bit of money. Thanks again for all of your time and information.

Hi Luana, for rubber stamps and general cleaning I used 1 part Simple green to 9 parts water. You can get simple green at walmart in the auto section. Put the SG and water in a spray bottle and you are good to go! For clear stamps I used 1 tablespoon baby shampoo in a 6 oz bottle of water. Happy stamping!

I’m sorry but I got confused in the end. How are we suppose to store our inks? I think you said upside down for dye and right side up for pigment? Please correct me if I’m wrong. 🙂 And thanks for a great tutorial!!! I’m just getting into this and am very happy I found your tutorial.

I’m brand new to scrapbooking & I can’t thank you enough for your suggestions & advice. I just LOVE your videos. I’m addicted to this new “hobby”. My child is SO excited to create w/me. She just made 6 & is so very creative. Thank you so very much for sharing your creativeness, joy for the craft, & just being fun to watch.

I cannot find anything about Michael’s Craft Store inks. They are called Craft Smart dye ink. Do you have any opinion on them? I am new to stamping and when you first start out its expensive to buy stamps, ink, paper and so on. I want to invest my money wisely.

I don’t know, I have never used those. You might want to stick with a reliable brand like Ranger or Colorbox/Clearsnap. Memento inks are also good and available in mini pads and you can reink them just like the big ones. I would choose mini pads of great ink over chancy store brands in this case unless you know someone who has used them.

only solvent inks are alcohol based, those would be like the Staz-on pads, the dye and pigment are both water based, the pigment inks contain pigments rather than dies and also have glycerin in them to make them dry slow but glycerin is water soluble.

with the surfacing of the ranger ink refresher I took to your site to find out how to make my own. If it is on the ink pad cheat sheet when I downloaded it,,,,it was all gibberish! Do you have something else to view and print? Thanks as always for your time!!

I am trying to figure out if some types of ink are less likely to bleed through paper than others. I have some rubber stamps I like to use in my planner, but the image bleeds thru to the other side. Any suggestions?

I’m a stamping planner chick too! Chalk inks are the BEST, for not bleeding through (Versa Magic Dew Drops & Prima Chalk Edgers). I also LOVE the Versa Color Pigment ink cubes too.. These are my favorites for my planner. I’ve also started using ColorBox Cat’s Eyes- in pigments & chalks, they are also popular among planner lover’s. For a really good crisp black ink, with no bleed-through, I use VersaFine Pigment (Black Onyx). I hope this helps, I was in the same boat & had to scour the internet to find sound advice on this topic 🙂

I am so glad I found this. I bough a few different brand ink pads but is not really happy with any of them. Now I realized that ink isn’t just ink, some of it is paint so they work differently. I am going to order more ink pads right now.
Thank you.

Thank you! I am an occasional stamper and had never understood the difference between pigment ink and alcohol inks. Also thanks for showing how to ink the stamp and how to store the different inks. I’ll probably be using my stamps more often now.

I think this is wonderful, thank you. Still would like to know how to avoid repeating previous errors though, for example, which inks to use on vellum, and whether only Memento can be used with alcohol inks. I need more confidence with stamping and colouring!

I am working on making coasters for my sister’s wedding. What kind of ink would be best to use on cork coasters? The coasters have a very even texture but the ink would have to be waterproof. I looked at Staz-on but they don’t seem to have the burgundy color I’m looking for. I’m as new to this as can be, so please use small words. Lol.

hi I’m a subscriber to your YouTube videos it helps me a lot I’m new to this and ty for the cheat sheet of the
inks I luv the color box pigment inks and the cats eye and the dew drops but being on disability I can’t really get anything ,
I work disabled people making cards but with my limited $$ I can’t do anything.
sorry for a long letter.
ty yvonne mccain

hi Lyndsey, I love your YouTube videos I needed to know I’m using copic marker’s but which ink pad is good for it so it doesn’t bleed or fade away? I heard that mementos ink cuz it a dye based ink?
they have the mini , can you let me know b4 the 30 th so I don’t buy the wrong one.
ty yvonne mccain
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